Cinder
Origins Born to two respected academics in the early 20th Century, Suranna Sinclair was always a relatively studious child, preferring to bury her nose in a book and build her knowledge rather than run around outside like other children. This was exacerbated by the onset of a skin condition which left her skin cracked and painful, with doctors unable to identify the source and ordering her to remain bedridden until they could study it further. While stuck inside, she devoured stacks of books, learning across a depth and breadth of different subjects. But it was history that truly fascinated her, and she begged her parents to bring home any books they could that concerned history and mythology. She learned everything she could about the history of the world, and promised herself that she would dedicate whatever time she had to finding out even more. Eventually the doctors conceded that they were unable to find a permanent remedy for her skin condition, but offered her the option to leave her bedroom as long as she kept the broken skin covered with bandages. She ventured out into the world, unfazed by the strange looks her bandaged arms were given, and set out to become an archaeologist. Facing down the challenge with her signature enthusiasm, she began to contact the most prominent archaeologists she could find and asked to become an apprentice. Only one responded, a man named Gilford Hardison, who offered to bring her along on a small archaeological dig in the North of England, and she gladly accepted. Archaeology Hardison witnessed Suranna's enthusiasm first hand on this dig, as she asked questions and expertly identified certain artifacts that were uncovered. Soon he was bringing her along on all of his digs, and within twelve months she had become his official apprentice. She hung on his every word, desperate to learn as much as she could from her new mentor, but she was oblivious to his underlying motivations. Soon after her 19th birthday, after a late night dig in Ireland, Hardison made an advance on Suranna. She rejected him, even as he declared his undying love for her. She refused to be manipulated by an older man and pushed him away, at which point he became angry and dismissed her from his service. She packed up without hesitation and left the dig site in the middle of the night, knowing that this would be the last time she ever saw her former mentor. Headstrong as ever, Suranna struck out on her own and her passion earned her a grant for a dig in Norway, where she was able to lead a small team in excavating a potential burial site. She left for Norway the same day, not knowing that what she would find there would change her life forever. Sindr A few days into the Norwegian expedition the dig was interrupted when a haggard, half-naked man stumbled into the dig site. Although Suranna attempted to calm him from his manic state, she was helpless as his body incinerated itself from the inside out, and the flames which crawled and flickered under his skin transferred into her body. In a blaze of fury, her entire expedition party was immolated and she lost control of her own body to the fire elemental Sindr. In an instant, she was witness to the nature and history of this being: created by the ancient sorcerer Merlin, Sindr was a powerful fire elemental with the power and fury to burn down all of creation. He had been imprisoned in a human body and frozen in enchanted ice for many centuries to protect the fabric of reality from his fire and fury, but had escaped from his shackles after Merlin fell into his long slumber. But Sindr was not as powerful as he once was, now forever bonded to the human form. He would only have physical form as long as he could possess the body of a human, but his flames burned too bright and too hot for the frail mortal body to handle, and he was destined for a life of shifting from body to body, burning them to ash without being able to unleash his true power. However, with Suranna the fire elemental had found more than he had bargained for. Her confidence and stubbornness pushed back against the creature's influence, and she was able to wrest back control of her body. Ultimately, she was able to do what no mortal being, and not even Merlin himself had been able to accomplish: she struck a bargain with the creature. They would share the body, with Suranna maintaining full control of her physical and mental faculties, and in return she would allow Sindr to access the full fury of his power when she required it, something he had been unable to do since his binding many centuries earlier. When he told her that the full force of his power would burn her to ash, she realised that her childhood skin condition seemingly protected her from the flames. After a considerable back and forth which included Suranna threatening to refreeze their shared body and lock the elemental away for another few centuries, Sindr accepted her terms and thus began a fruitful symbiotic relationship. Cinder With access to the fiery powers of creation and destruction at her fingertips, it would have been easy for Suranna to become a being of wrath and fury. But her headstrong nature prevented it, and she instead pledged to use her new abilities to help the human race, becoming a hero known as Cinder. Using her knowledge of history and mythology, Cinder focused her activities on preventing strange creatures from beyond the Veil of reality from breaking through and threatening humanity. She fought back monsters, dark sorcerers and even a demon or two, all the while discovering more about the mystical flames that powered her heroic campaign. Having saved a small village in Denmark from a creature known as the Grendel, Cinder's activities came to the attention of the American enhanced combatant known as Agent Apex, who visited her late one night with a proposition. He was establishing a defence plan known as the Superior '''strategy, creating a network of superhuman individuals around the world who could be called into action should anything threaten the Earth. In other circumstances Suranna would likely have declined this offer, but she could feel that the man asking was kind and compassionate, and she agreed to become part of his plan. The Founder Invasion It would not be long before her services were required, as an alien invasion began in July of 1947. As vast and powerful spacecraft materialised in the Earth's atmosphere, Cinder found herself called into action and joined the battle in the skies above '''Roswell, New Mexico. She fought alongside other superhumans including The Eclipse and Skywatch, and her abilities proved invaluable in destroying waves of attacking alien footsoldiers. She was brought in the final boarding party as the alien agent known as Beacon teleported a small contingent of soldiers onto the alien mothership. She stood alongside Agent Apex, watching the man who had recruited her as he faced off against something terrifying and otherworldly with no fear or hesitation in his voice or actions. The Founder Overlord attacked the group, and Cinder was instrumental in defeating the powerful alien as she was able to burn him from the inside out, weakening him and allowing Beacon to land the killing blow. Cinder unleashed her flames to destroy the mothership, and the team returned to Earth to watch as the entire fleet retreated into outer space. The Superior Squad In the aftermath of the Founder Invasion, Agent Apex approached Cinder with an offer, to join a team he was putting together to come to the defence of humanity against threats like the invaders they had managed to defeat. Cinder agreed, and Agent Apex invited her to becoming a founding member of the Superior Squad. She agreed, on the condition that Apex tell her his real name, and he agreed, introducing her for the first time to Carter Riggs. In the early days, Carter and Suranna developed a mutual attraction which was obvious to the other members of the team, but there was always some new threat that required their attention. Finally, on Christmas Day 1952, Suranna made the first move and kissed Carter, and from there a deep and mutually beneficial relationship was formed, one which never got in the way of their duties but strengthened both of them. The pair were deeply in love from the early days of their relationship, and on Christmas Day 1953, exactly one year after their first kiss, Carter proposed and Suranna agreed to marry him. Although forces outside their control both directly and indirectly conspired to stop them, they were eventually married in July of 1954 with their teammates and friends surrounding them. The Siege of Kymeria The emergence of the hostile foreign nation of Kymeria in the early 1960s would change everything for both Carter and Suranna. After the Unified Nations declared their intentions to send a small covert operation into the country to discover the intentions of its leader, the despotic Countess Chaos, Agent Apex and Skywatch stepped up and infiltrated the dangerous nation. Suranna was hesitant to let her husband go, but he was as headstrong and stubborn as ever and promised that he would be back soon. So when he was captured by the Countess and Skywatch was murdered, she immediately travelled to the borders of the country. She watched in horror as Beacon, the Eclipse and Doctor Photon tried and failed to breach the country's impenetrable force shields, and was powerless to help as Countess Chaos executed her husband on live television. For the first time since they bonded, an enraged Suranna surrendered control to Sindr, who unleashed an inferno upon the country, immolating the inhabitants and scorching the entire nation down to the ground. He even burned a hole in the fabric of reality and banished the entire country to the hell dimension of Tartarus, never to be seen again. The power and emotional strain were too much for Suranna's mortal body to handle, and she fell into a comatose state. To this day she has not recovered, although she is being cared for by the best medical staff UNION '''has to offer. Personality Suranna has always been a unique personality, a combination of studious and headstrong, exuding confidence yet also content to spend hours in isolation, reading books and carrying out research. Other people find it difficult to fully understand her, so when she finds someone who does it is likely that they will be friends for life, although anyone who connects with her knows that her passions come first, before any relationship she has. Those passions are varied, and new ones have developed over the years. First came history, then archaeology, then protecting innocent people, and finally her husband Carter Riggs. She loved each of these things with great intensity, and would prioritise them above anything else that life could throw at her. After bonding with the fire elemental known as Sindr, the headstrong part of her personality has become more prominent, and if anything she has become even less predictable. She can go from calm to explosive at a moment's notice, but always chooses to use her vast mystical power for good, regardless of how angry she might be. Superhuman Abilities Having bonded with a mystical entity, Cinder's superhuman abilities are vast and varied, including: * '''Pyrokinesis - Cinder is able to manipulate and generate vast quantities of magical flame for a variety of purposes, anything from generating light and warmth to unleashing a raging inferno on her enemies. * Flight - By manipulating the heat of the air around her, Cinder can create powerful updrafts which allow her to take flight. * Mystical Flame - The fire that Cinder controls is magical in origin, meaning that it has greater capabilities than normal flame. It can burn corruption away from people's souls, breathe temporary life into otherwise inanimate objects, and even banish mortal beings to the hell dimension known as Tartarus. While the raw power of Sindr's flame has the capacity to burn the bodies of its hosts to ash, Suranna has always suffered from a strange and unexplained skin condition which somehow prevents this from occurring. Nobody has been able to explain this, but it makes her unique among Sindr's hosts as she is able to access the full fury of the elemental's powers without affecting her own physical form. Weapons and Equipment Cinder's mystical powers are so great that she has no need for simple weaponry.Category:Characters